Characters as Actors--Showing, Not Telling, Personality

Characters as Actors--Showing, not Telling, Personality
by
Tami Cowden

As writers, we tend to know our characters very well. After all, we live with these people. But sometimes our readers don't "get" our characters. We can, of course, tell ourselves that we write for a much more discerning crowd than we've ever actually found. Or, we can roll up our sleeves and get back to the characterization drawing board. Mine have been rolled up so often, they have permanent creases.

A while back, I was engaged in a project that required me to watch movies. Lots of movies. Hundreds and hundreds of movies. I was watching to learn the archetypes of the characters conveyed in the films. I leaned a lot.

But not just about archetypes. I learned about how character is conveyed to an audience. Actors do a lot more than recite the words written for them. They bring the personalities imagined by the screenwriter to a living breathing form. They show how the character walks, talks, dresses, lives, interacts with others. Absent some form of narration - rather rare in film, they never rely on introspection.

Sounds like the opposite of what we do, huh? So often, we convey personality by telling the reader exactly what the character thinks.

Uh, oh. What's wrong with that word picture. Exactly! It is not a word picture. When we tell the reader the character is angry, or happy, or whatever, we are doing just that. Telling. Not showing.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Let your characters do what the actors do - show personality. How? In exactly the same way as in a film. Bear with me - I am serious. Let me tell you what I mean.

Physical appearance. Think about your favorite actors, and their different roles. They don't always look the same, do they? Actors change their appearance to portray characters - they gain or lose weight, dye, cut or shave their hair, grow or shave facial hair, wear pads in their cheeks or under their clothing, which clothing is likely very different from what the actor wears at home.

Why do actors do this? Because physical appearance conveys personality. Think of Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone. Open collared shirts, tight jeans, boots, a machete hanging down his back, longish hair. Now, think of Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction. Pressed shirts and slacks, loafers, briefcase, neatly trimmed hair. Jack Colton's facial features may look a lot like Dan Gallagher's, but there is no mistaking these men.

So - treat your characters like a paper doll and dress them up in different outfits. Does your hero wear leather pants and a jacket, chinos and polo shirt, jeans and a T-short? Are the jeans ironed? Does you heroine wear a skirt cut to here, or the prim blouse with an Oxford collar. Does the conservative exterior hide risqué underwear? Does the low-cut blouse cover plain white cotton underthings?

Now that you have looks, think about that actual acting. Actors convey character with facial expressions, posture, body language, and speech. Just the way a character moves across the screen says a lot about what's in his or her head. In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman played a loose limbed, verbally agile actor (type casting!). Words rolled off his tongue, and he was in complete control of his body. But in Rain Man, Hoffman spoke in a clipped monotone, and held himself stiffly, as though warding off stimuli from the environment around him (as autistic persons often need to do). Or watch The Dirty Dozen - there's a quiz. What impression do you get from body language of the character of Arthur Maggot - played by Telly Savalas? Does he ever become a member of this team?
As a writer, you can give your characters this same ability to convey their relationship with the world around them. Let the reader know if you character trips and falls, or walks gracefully over obstacles. Show expressions, posture and gestures. Let you character convey his or her feelings.

The environment in which a character lives tells a lot, too. If you are old enough to remember the TV show The Odd Couple, think about the differences in the two men's bedrooms. You wouldn't have to know anything else about the show - when you saw those two rooms, you knew these men. For the younger set, think of how Dharma has decorated the apartment she shares with her more uptight husband. That apartment tells worlds about her.

Show the read the world your character inhabits - and how he or she has made that world comfortable - or not?

What ever is shown on a screen can be written on the page. Next time you watch a move - any movie, take note of the visual and auditory cues you get to help you understand the characters. Add those cues to your writing, and you'll be showing, not telling.

Tami Cowden is coauthor of The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes (Lone Eagle 2000). She is also a candidate for Director of Region 4 of RWA.

Characters as Actors--Showing, not Telling, Personality by Tami Cowden

Characters as Actors--Showing, not Telling, Personality
by
Tami Cowden